The cabinet meetings usually held on Wednesdays will be moved to Fridays to enable ministers to be present at parliament sittings, said Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz.

nazri abdul aziz and parliament and ballot box election According to Bernama , Nazri said the change of the traditional cabinet day also had to do with the planned 30-minute live telecasts of Parliament proceedings from the end of this month.

"Before this, during question time (Q&A) deputy ministers or parliamentary secretaries answer for ministers because they (ministers) sometimes are unable to be present.

"Now with this live telecast move, the ministers themselves will provide the answers as the people will be closely watching the proceedings," said Mohamed Nazri on a talk show last night.

Nazri said he hoped the live telecasts would make parliamentarians more careful on what they say and about their behaviour in the August House.

"Although they have parliamentary immunity, they must be careful not to raise sensitive issues and if they do, they must be prepared to face the consequences," he said.

He said if the trial run of the telecast (from 10am to 10.30 am each sitting day) was successful, the telecasts might be increased to 90 minutes daily, covering the whole of the Q&A session and should it be extraordinarily well received, the entire proceedings would be telecast live.

He said this had not been done earlier because it had been cost prohibitive - costing about RM15 million if telecasts were held over 92 days of sitting.

"But because the people are demanding for it now, we must accede," added the minister.